Fear, Frustration and a Kid’s Show 7/16/2023

By: Jennifer Richardson Holt

A few days ago, I was about to take our new puppy, who isn’t really all that new anymore, out into the back yard.  I had just stirred her from what was apparently a rather glorious nap, and she was a tad on the limp side in my arms. Well, her front legs were oddly stuck straight out. She does that I’ve noticed upon waking. It doesn’t seem to be for stretching reasons like you would suspect, but it’s almost as though she sleeps so hard that rigor mortis sets in just a tad. But I digress.  As I was carrying this small, chocolate, floppy, other than the front legs bundle out the back door I heard a sound something akin to if you dropped a bag full of fresh leaves on the floor. I looked toward the sound because it was rather unique and a tad startling. It had come from one of my pots of flowers.

It is a good thing that the canine in my arms was still so drowsy or things could have gone downhill so terribly quickly. It is also an incredibly good thing that my mother was not there or one, or more likely all of us, would have been very seriously injured.  I watched a roughly four-foot-long snake as he dangled from my flowerpot. He had apparently been after a blue-tailed skink that was now skittering across my patio in what can only be described as horrified relief.  The snake clearly had just struck at the little fellow and didn’t plan things out quite as well as he’d hoped and only succeeded at knocking him down so he could run away.  Now, my legless friend might have been planning on chasing him however, once he flung himself out of the plant, he and I immediately made eye contact. 

To look directly into the eyes of a serpent is not necessarily something that I have done before. I daresay it isn’t something most people do unless perhaps it is their profession to be up close and personal with such creatures.  But as the scaly individual and I looked at each other we both had the exact same facial expression. We were both quite surprised at the other’s presence and doing our utmost to casually back away from an unexpected situation.  I suppose I could have been imagining it, but it felt like he and I both were making identical faces made up of widely opened eyes and a mouth in the shape of a little surprised O. He tried desperately to nonchalantly mosey back into the flowers hoping I would be none the wiser.  Once one has seen a long glossy black reptile in their vicinity however, it is very difficult to just go back to acting as if this isn’t something that has been seen.  Even after I stealthily backed back into the house my heart continued its disconcerting pace.  I knew it was non-venomous.  That is not the point, however. It is a snake. There is a certain innate human reaction to seeing a snake especially in a very unexpected setting, even more especially pointing in your direction.  While one may be able to write off said reaction, it is initially, like it or not, merited or not, fear.

Then, there wasa driver in my local town. Now, I am my mother’s daughter and do not tolerate slow drivers very well. I prefer to drive at a higher rate of speed. I am not saying that I would ever break the advised legal limit of speed, but I am saying that I loathe having to go any significant amount below said prescribed limit.  Well, going to work one day this week I had the great misfortune of getting behind a driver who was either terrified of driving in general or appalled by the idea of actually applying his foot to the accelerator.  Going through an already unnecessarily slow speed limited town, this person, who I am sure is an otherwise lovely human, decided that going roughly 10 to 20 miles below the speed limit was the best course of action.  Let us not forget the zealous breaking he did upon encountering any oncoming traffic, birds, a cloud in the sky or a stiff breeze.  And this fellow had on a large straw hat in his car. For some reason this made his pathetic driving practices all the more snarky to me.

Now, for those of us who needed to get to work sometime within the week, this did not prove a particularly pleasing scenario. Not to mention the utter joy you can imagine that I experienced when, going 10 miles below the speed limit already, upon sight of a police officer, ole slow poke had to slow down even further to a pace that crippled snails passed with a chuckle.  As you can probably conclude, this was a test of both my patience and my sanity.  My most generous and polite description of the matter would have to be called frustration.

Then, also this week I was watching an animated series that both my 7-year-old daughter and my husband and I love.  It is full of truth, meaning and reality that appeals to every age.  This particular episode had a family playing musical statues which is the equivalent of musical chairs but with no chairs only dancing, just insisting the participants freeze when the music stops.  Once the game was over the mother uttered the profound wisdom that, (and I am paraphrasing) it wasn’t about winning or losing. It isn’t about getting to the end, or the weekend or even the weekend that never ends. It is just about dancing while the music plays.  Well, I wasn’t particularly prepared for deep life sentiment while watching this show (though, knowing the show I should have been). 

This show that is supposedly for children taught me that despite my run ins with fear or frustration, that sometimes we focus too much on the destination. Ironically whenever we do get to where we are going, we tend to look ahead to the next place instead of being happy about where we have arrived.  We often do not allow ourselves to feel any level of contentment with the now despite how long we may have worked to arrive at it.  It’s unfair to all the roads we’ve traveled and mountains we’ve climbed if we are always searching for next.  There is nothing wrong with looking ahead and often fear and frustrations might make one more than happy to look to new places. But let’s not forget that where we are now is somewhere that we once thought a worthwhile destination and we shouldn’t let the unexpected or annoying take that away.